Mark Grether — SVP & General Manager, PayPal Ads at PayPal

Mark Grether has taken on the role of SVP & General Manager of PayPal Ads, the advertising division of PayPal. Grether is a well-known figure in the AdTech industry, previously serving as CEO of Uber Advertising, where he built Uber's advertising business into a significant revenue stream. His appointment at PayPal signals the company's serious commitment to expanding its advertising business, leveraging its vast trove of first-party transaction data to compete in the growing commerce media and retail media space. PayPal Ads is positioning itself as a data-driven advertising platform built on what Grether describes as a 'transaction graph' — a unique dataset derived from PayPal's hundreds of millions of active consumer accounts and billions of transactions processed annually. This gives PayPal a differentiated identity and targeting signal in a post-cookie world. The move represents PayPal's strategic pivot to monetize its data assets beyond payment processing, entering the competitive commerce media landscape alongside players like Chase Media Solutions, Mastercard, and Visa.

Grether's appointment and PayPal's offsite ads strategy represent a significant development in the commerce media and financial services advertising space. PayPal's transaction graph — spanning online and offline purchases across a wide range of merchants and categories — offers a compelling alternative to cookie-based targeting and even rivals retail media networks in terms of purchase-intent signal quality. By expanding into offsite advertising, PayPal is not just competing with retail media networks like Amazon Ads or Walmart Connect, but also with data clean room and identity solution providers. This move intensifies competition among financial data-driven ad networks, including JPMorgan Chase's media network and Mastercard's advertising services. For brands and agencies, PayPal Ads offers a new premium inventory and audience targeting option grounded in verified purchase behavior. The broader implication is that financial institutions and payment processors are emerging as a new class of media and data companies, further fragmenting the AdTech ecosystem and challenging traditional DSPs, DMPs, and walled gardens.